 All right, looks like we're live. We are alive. We are alive. I don't see anything. How do we It's all my second time going live, so I don't see anybody. How do we do this? Okay, all right now there we go All right, there we go, okay, okay, I see some people now Check it in check it in What's going everybody welcome this evening? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the love Actually, I was uh, I did a podcast today with a CEO of gov shop public spending form and It was really good like we really went over some stuff Love to share it with everybody out there You know this guy is I mean they're doing some crazy stuff. I'm doing great. Thanks for asking. How are you? What's up MJ global? What's up trucking Justin? Kimberly Yates Thank you, sir. I appreciate you. We uh, we work hard man. We're putting out some stuff You know, it's funny though just even like for me Seeing some of that content that they put out on IG I I haven't seen it in a minute either, right? So like You know, I'm going back and I'm I'm like, wow this stuff is perfect like this You know remember I did the interviews, but I did those interviews some of them last year And you know, you just I'm doing sometimes I'm doing two in a day or three interviews in a day And by the way, just for everyone out there Mondays are typically my podcast days So Uh, I got a Mondays I'll crank out, you know, depending upon how many people Maria sets up for me two or three Guests I'll interview at the same time. So, you know Sometimes it does kind of like rum come together, but Nevertheless we um Like the image really good content. It's good stuff And it you know, my name is getting out there A lot of people reaching out to us people starting to recommend us guest And I've been talking to a lot of executives CEOs of really large organizations And the guy who I met with today Raj and Raj comes from One of those, you know booze out of Hamilton consulting firm Started his own consulting business and then He saw kind of like some of the the areas in the market where they needed some help He formed his own business. He blew that up And he actually was responsible for for department DoD contracting wide like the acquisition strategy for the Department of Defense So What's up, Nicky What's up MJ Riley So, yeah, but now we uh, we got some good guests and Like he just he just dropped a lot of jewels He built this huge marketplace to raise a bunch of venture capital money and now In fact, he was telling me the week like we were on a podcast at two o'clock And he literally he said like Eric I got a dead stop at three o'clock because he has to meet with the state of Arizona's governor about helping them with their PPE efforts because Some of these states and like he's their their their new platform Is being used by the defense department and by the governor's association of all of the states To help them with their PPE efforts because a lot of states have been taken advantage of And even now we think kind of like what Trevor Noah said We would think that by now they would have got it right like you would think that the states They would have figured this out back in march, right about this whole PPE thing and they're still Still struggling with it. So I was on a phone with him and then he was like had to get a phone me to go talk to the governors over in Arizona. So it's just Man, I'm in a good space right now. I'm just really in a good space and you know just Here sharing Give them back. It looks like somebody wants to chat. Let me see how I do this hold on go live Okay, hold on Hold on who wants to go live? Calm down Waiting free throw Frank Yeah, no, you know, you know, it's really cool. Also is how A lot of people from my past right they're starting to come around and reaching out as well And they're like, it's funny because a lot of people don't they didn't know what I did, right? If you're like, what does this guy do man? This guy is like, you know, no one really know what I did So I like I guess until I start really posting and sharing stuff But you gotta remember when you do work for the government, especially the federal government, you're not really Like so even some of my podcast guests some of the things that we do Are top secret Not my stuff is not top secret, but I work in secret facilities. So you can't always share Everything that you do you can't always talk about it And so it's hard to convey to people like what do you do? It's almost like being like secret service or something, right? um I've got friends of contracts Ndc in the pentagon and they employ people and they don't even know what those people do Because they're not allowed to go into those facilities. So they don't even know like what those people do And it's same thing like me when I like when we build hangers and stuff like those are secure areas They literally make uh, like for example when you're working on a flight line or something near on government installation They'll make like a safe zone around you where you work at and then you can't leave that safe zone Like the whole like it literally says on the ground lethal force can be used if you cross this line So it's a lot of stuff that we can't talk about on here. So, you know, it's just it's it's Finally in this this way this manner now I get to share with everybody what we do And put it out there and and hopefully like some of some people are benefiting from it, right? So I hear a lot of good things from everybody out there But definitely I guess that person I was trying to connect with them So but listen if anybody has any questions You know Jump on let's chat. Let's talk. I I mean I welcome it I know um I actually had something that I want to talk about but I'd rather talk to someone out there to connect with me You know in my uh in my private group group last night people are asking me How do you start? I wrote it down. So I'm reading it right what I wrote down Good stuff, right? I that's good looking out Um, I wrote they asked me how do you start a business with no employees? Someone asked me that question It's air. How did you get started like when you don't have any employees, you know, how did you get started? And so I thought that'd be a good topic kind of like to talk about tonight But again, if anybody else has anything dexter Matter of fact, yo dexter maria just brought your name up today Maria were we not just talking about dexter today? We literally was she saw an opportunity for you and uh It's so funny that you're on tonight like maria just brought up here like we just looked at something today that She uh that made sense See maria's waving at you dex So yeah, we just talked about you maria jump. Listen I don't know if you're in a place where you could do you can jump on and and just like just share that real quick what you saw that makes sense with dexter maria Like, you know, so, um Until you guys hit me up to join I'll continue on that topic. So the people are like asking me What's about boogie? Yeah you mj? You know, what what what was it the opportunity that we saw with dexter? You know, you always got to start off people shy Oscar Hey guys, I can't see you. Oh, there you go You know, you have to got to start off like people get shy and stuff I'm tired today. I was at a job. So oh, okay. What were we talking about for dexter? So i'm through beta stand because of that podcast one and Right here in miami, which is yard There is with a f a a there's a solicitation to just to remove I guess they're tearing down a child care facility and they just post of that waste so What you have to do is carry all their junk to the waste site. That's it. Okay. Yeah, I knew it was something I was like we just talked about him today You're like Call your boy I was like, what is that? I said, no, it starts with a D. I was like, what's his name and no, it starts with a D By the way, so this is actually a funny story because It's the same thing when you're out trying to get contracts If you don't stay on the top of people's mind when something comes up an opportunity They're not going to remember you. So this is a really good point like You know, just kind of stay on top of people's mind because when the opportunity comes around Right, they're like, oh wait a second. Don't I have someone and it's like the same thing even with me one of our students sent us this elicitation for a podcast and So like, I mean, I'm not always checking stuff and monitoring it But someone sent it to me. I was like, hey, you know, let's go after this and put it in two bits. I was like, yeah, sure So that's what we did Because they send us that podcast one and then somebody else sent us the women's set-aside one Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, someone else didn't us the set-aside, right? I started looking and You said people have to stay on the top of your head But um for those that don't know the way that we met dexter was our miami meet and greet Right, so he took his away from his saturday night and came out and to that's true Yeah, no, no, that's that's real stuff. Yeah, he did that was good. What's up calling? Yeah, no, no, that's true. That's good stuff. So Um, I'm gonna get off so somebody else could probably jump on. All right. That's good What's that? Somebody said I saw that That's good. No, no, look you said we need to chat. We're here. Let's chat Jump on right now. Let's chat I don't You know, it's funny. I I I create so many opportunities for people to talk Uh, I'll be honest with you guys. It really it's much easier for me To talk on these forums or like what I do this month on fridays Because and I'll just explain it to everyone honestly If I spend an hour or 30 minutes talking with somebody one-on-one That takes away from content that I can create for thousands of people And so that's just kind of the way I look at my time now rather than just, you know, Basically saying hey, I'm gonna spend one-on-one with this person. Um, it just takes away from me creating content That's going, you know one video that will You know thousands of people will answer that question So the the only way that I really spend time with people on one is if it's they agree to record it the session So you have to agree to have it recorded so that I could chop it up and share it with people later um or Um, it's been a lot of money, right? So like even on my clarity calls I just raised up my rates to a thousand bucks an hour and Like hoping like okay. No one's gonna call me and of course people still call right? So let me uh, let me add you on Hey Hey, what's up? You tell me I am lashonda bracey the government contracting guru Nice I just got off the call with my one-on-one students. So i'm doing an eight week class But you and I you've been on my radar. I think um, one of my buddies was on a couple weeks ago Laura on your podcast Lori Yeah, so yeah, I keep saying I've been following you and catching your stuff. I was like, yeah, we definitely need to connect I'm here in the dc area. So oh you write your role the actions there. That's right. Send me a contract Not right Send me a contract Nobody spent their money everybody kind of spending now They try to spend it they just spend it not trying to spend it They're not it's trying they spending it right that's them simplified acquisitions and then you know, the micro purchases No, no, no, they doing it Oh, that's good. I'm glad I'm glad to see a familiar face. I you know, someone that looked like me Another head doing something good positive. That's great. I love it. I love it for your listeners. I'm actually doing a Women of color in government contracting summit in a couple weeks. So um, I've got You beat me to it that will be on huh? You beat me to that Yeah, I want I want to do a women's color summit. You know what? I did we're doing Huh No, you're part good Go ahead. I mean it works. I've got um department of treasury speaking and a couple other agencies. So yeah, I'll definitely keep you posted Good stuff I'm here. I ain't going nowhere Tell all your tell all your small businesses. Just my little tidbit A lot of our business I can't hear you I can't hear you love didn't get pp money because our people don't have Bank accounts. That's all I got. I don't know if it's you or me and where your signal is going out All I gotta say Yeah, okay. You said a lot of a lot of us didn't get pp because what can you guys hear? I can't hear Okay, takes it Hold up It's a mic. Is it just me? Can you guys hear me? Her signal is out. Okay. That's what I figured because I can't hear We can't hear you love You got all this good information. We can't even hear you Oh, there it is. LaShonda Bracey. All right Okay, LaShonda Bracey is her name LaShonda type in the name of your organization so we could follow you Okay, so you guys can hear me LaShonda. We can't hear you I think LaShonda is having signal issues remove her real quick and uh, we'll get back on But she said they're having a women of color event coming up. She's gonna Reach out to us. So yeah, I just connected her. Hopefully she'll try to request to come back on Stacey wants to join I I would love to have Stacey on I could see we could we can't see you anymore LaShonda. We can hear you Yeah, I'll bring Stacey Stacey Let me uh, let's talk to Stacey. Let me see. Okay. No, Mary. She's not ready What's up So no, but at least she's here. Welcome Stacey Um, so LaShonda said she's having an event coming up and she was telling us about some of the speakers That are going to be at her women of color event That's coming up soon So, um, we will get more information and we will share it Oh, okay. No, no, listen. Thank you for at least coming on and visiting us In fact, Lori was on last week. We're going to do this every Wednesday. So, um If you get a chance Anytime you get a chance come on. We'd love to say hi And tell everybody out there to speak with us. So that's good But at least thank you for for coming in and watching and seeing what we do So that's great LaShonda, where you at? Where is she at? She was talking about She said that I know she was saying about the PPE a lot of Small businesses that did not receive the PPE was because they did not have Oh, hold on There she is All right, we're waiting for her Okay, all right. Can you hear me now? Perfect. The guys didn't want us talking about government contracting. I don't know what the color You know You know how that is Yeah, I know but go ahead finish it because someone just they go ahead. So tell us what you were saying about the PPE now So I was saying a lot of minority businesses did not get the PPE because small businesses Didn't do their due diligence and have bank accounts business bank Accounts. Okay That was a large A large folks that got rejected just f1 Okay, okay. All right. Um, and then so you put your name in there. What's the name of the organization? Your organization, um, I've got my organization I'm I own health works was which is a it training and course development company But I also only shine of bracy.com where I help small businesses Make sure they're registered properly and identify the agencies they should be doing their business with Okay. No, we want to we want to plug you You know, we want to plug you in baby. So definitely, uh On your pack at some point listen Look similar your information, right? And then we'll definitely share with our people Okay, in fact, I know someone already asked about it already. So, um, drop it in the chat and we'll share with people out here the women and As soon as my Graphics is with the graphics. I'll make sure I get it Okay, all right. No, we want it and I've got we want to we want to show you love. We want to show you some love. So All right. No, I'm glad. No, I'm glad you came on because Some people are hiding back here. I'm like, how am I supposed to know that I can help people be hiding? Oh, no, I'm not hiding at all Good. I love it. I love it. I love there's there's more is enough. Shoot a message Okay All right, sweet You gotta have on a face mask a body suit No, never mind. Never mind. You don't want to be a you gotta have one of the body suits In in normal times. Okay, normal times Yeah, we're right now. Right Right. Okay. No, thank you. All right. So it's funny. Um She looks like she's going out again. I don't know why But yeah, so we'll go back to me off I don't know why it does either. It's on my for my phone. It's spinning around you But that's okay. We have the info. So we're good We have it. So we we're gonna check you out. We're gonna follow you and um Maybe we could plan something All right, let's go back because someone asked me about the question about starting a business with no employees and They brought that up last night By the way, thank you Lashona for the information. We're gonna share it with everyone in our circle You know what I tell people for me When I um because they asked us in a group, what did I do and by the way? Yes to answer your question this will be saved on our instagram So you will be able to go back and see this I learned that Last week. Thank you Justin for teaching me Uh how to save stuff, but you know one of the when I ever People are asking me Eric. How did you how did you start an organization? Right and hire people? So for me The the first time that I did it um You know because I'm in construction my first hire was always a project manager So I would find someone who was an expert in the particular area that I wanted to Actually focus on and that person I would you know find that person was like the expert and so we'll go back to let's say steel buildings and when I decided to get into the steel building arena Um, it wasn't like my choice to do steel buildings. So so you know my idea was To it's like, okay. I want to find a niche market. I don't want to just do regular construction How do I determine a niche that I want to get into because I knew from Understanding how the construction businesses work that it would take a long time to actually ramp up and grow Because bonding and and those types of things and if I was to work as a subcontractor I could grow my organization much faster. So in in doing that And we'll and by the way, I see your questions out there. So we'll we'll talk about Um, the rfq stuff and we'll talk about micro contract stuff, but when um So when I was doing that, I said, okay, I went out and I started Talking to people and letting them know. Hey, you know, I'm a general contractor but I want to get into a niche marketplace and And just talking people sharing my ideas older gentlemen Told me about metal buildings and steel buildings And he was the one that first came to me and he said hey look, you know Most of my life I've done steel buildings and it's been it's done Right by me is taking care of my family and a lot of my other friends Also did steel buildings and at the time I didn't even know what metal buildings or steel buildings was And what happened was he said, okay, you know, if you're interested I'll be glad to show you how to do it. So an older person really took me under their wings And he was the one that helped me Actually set up with my the manufacturer of the buildings He was the one that vouched for my experience because he agreed to put up his experience And he had like 30 years of experience and then again, I had made money doing a consultant as a consultant So I had money saved up But he put up the experience and I knew how to do government contracts. So for me I knew how to do the government contract piece. He had the experience piece And then what happened was he was able to help me become a supplier for seco metal buildings Which again, I didn't even know who the suppliers were. I didn't have a good supplier from a bad supplier Like I had no idea and he said, look, this is one of the largest metal building suppliers in the country There's really There was three or four like major metal building suppliers. They're one of the big four and he literally Took me to the supplier He vouched for me. He knew the regional managers. He knew the district managers and he literally was like I'm gonna represent this organization and I'm going to be the one that ensures That the buildings are compliant and that they actually do it the right way And so he walked me literally just walked me right in And he's the one that got me Signed up with him as a distributor of their buildings And he got me registered and then from there I had an account manager an account rep And the account believe it or not when you do like say metal buildings and you become a distributor the the account rep They did all of my estimating So they literally I would take them a set of drawings and they would do the takeoffs They would do the estimating for me as that was like part of their service So again, remember, I know nothing about steel buildings nothing like zero And they took I was able to get like I don't have any here in this particular office But in my other offices, I have like all my drawings and stuff and I was able to take So when I got my first like bid or job They gave me like, you know, you get this whole stack of drawings like blueprints, right? And I took Gave it to the guy and they the whole seco the company they have engineering department. They've got estimators They they they have all that stuff and they were able to give me a detailed breakdown of all the materials I needed how much they cost and they gave me a quote and Shortly after that that I became a distributor and this is what I tell people You know, once you set your mind to something you write it down and you start work, you know It becomes a goal and becomes actionable then like the world conspires to help you And it was short after that time that there came a job For a metal building on the same military base that I had to working on for the previous three years And again, I had been working as a consultant for other like 8a companies So I had never actually done a single not not one job As my company not one zero I literally so it's it It I went from this older guy who was like, I mean he was like ready out the door retirement age like You would be so surprised how many people That are retired or semi retired will be happy to reach back and help you out there It doesn't matter what industry they're in In fact, I was talking to Pierce Which is, you know, he turned from a student to a colleague to a friend last night. He met the guy who invented java Like how cool is that I was part of entrepreneurs organization and eo If you don't know about eo, it's the best thing in the world Once you get your business up past a quarter of a million a year You could do the accelerator and once you exceed a million dollars in revenue annually Then you can get into the eo group Which is all like people like myself And all of these like great people out there who have organizations who they built up Not someone that inherited a company not someone that bought a company You have to be an actual creator a founder and you have to own like 51 So you can't be like your daddy's company that you represent No, you had to actually be in the grind and start like From the bottom up and understand the organization and that's the kind of people they want But going back to the story when I was in eo And we would have like quarterly meetings with all of us to group together There was a guy that came to our meeting that was able to partner with the former inventor creator Of um, what was that window system that came out before google? There was like one of the windows operating systems that no longer exist today Netscape You probably don't even know about Netscape. So he literally Was able to partner with the founder of Netscape I don't think that we all realize or understand or even we we think about and when people say think big, right? It's not even to me Simon thinking big. It's just Not being afraid to reach out and and talk to people who maybe you may be a little uncomfortable with Talking to because maybe they don't look like you maybe don't come from the same place that you come from But you will be so surprised how many people out there that really especially again once they get to an older age Like they've already made money. They've already experienced success And we all know or if you don't know we've all at least read about the joy of giving right the joy That you receive by giving and helping others. So a lot of those people You know Imagine if for example Let's say you are a x nba player and now you're retired. You're out of the league. It's 20 years later or 15 years removed You're nobody you can walk in any club. You can walk in any bar and nobody cares So they're not even relevant anymore. And that's the same thing with a lot of these guys that were once these executives Today, they're not relevant And that's that that's kind of what happened to me was I found a guy who at one point had all the success And it's not was it relevant anymore? And so You know, whether you want to help a younger guy, again, I'm in my 20s He's in the 60s or if you just want to reach back and and again, they had the time He didn't need money. So he didn't charge me nothing. I paid zero Zero zero cost me zero dollars A lot of people were like, how do I find mentors? How do I find mentors? What? Look for them Look for them look for people who were once relevant that are not relevant today That's that will be a great place to start go on linkedin. Look for people who again Maybe they did something back in the 90s, right? That was like, wow, they were known for and So and then reach out to them and say hey and again make sure they're in your industry your space And you say look, you know, I have this idea. I know a little bit about this over here Um And so I just need some help, right? Would you be willing to Be like on my board advisors, right something simple No big command man, and that's how you do it. So for me The guy set me up Set me up with the accounts set me up as with the distributorship I had and I was able because and I teach this on youtube free how to set up supplier credits So I had supplier accounts with smaller Uh companies like mobile mani and some like, uh, what was the name of that company? I would like to cover that sold screws and nuts and bolts I had like five thousand ten thousand dollar supplier credit accounts and then Now i'm getting into like this metal building. So when I set up with them I think my initial account I think the largest supplier credit I had was like 25 000 at the time And but again, I was able to apply for supplier credit with them And so what happened was I literally Took my account my supply credit Right, and then when the government came out with this bid I gave the the company the drawings the plans Remember, I didn't even know how to estimate a steel building. I never did a steel building I didn't even know how you called the beings I didn't know anything about this stuff And I and we posted this on instagram recently because I have friends that challenge me sometimes, right? And they're like, man, you got to learn the trade like I got to learn how to fix ac's I got to learn how to do electrical work The problem with that is when you learn how to do the actual work You get sucked back in when problems arise when things go wrong You get sucked back in to actually doing the work and resolving the problem fixing it When you don't know how to do the work you have to learn how to be a leader You have to learn how to have a better team. You have to learn how to project manager You got to learn how to hire high quality people. You got to learn interview skills You got to learn people management skills. You have to learn a know another skill set That's critical to you growing the business So for me and any organization will teach you this right in order to grow and scale You have to get outside of the business You can't be the worker and lori talks about this on the podcast, right? You have to be outside of the business. You can't be the business You can't be the organization And that's what happens, right? You typically for like for programmers out there, right? If you're a programmer for your it guy like you go in and you're like these guys screw up You're like, you know what? I'm just gonna fix it. Forget it. I don't forget it. I'm just gonna fix it And you go in there. You're like, I'm gonna fix the code now. You're stuck back into the organization Well, I didn't know I don't know how to do any of this stuff So I had to learn How to find the right people and how to manage them And how to organize them and how to fire them and how to rehire new people and that's what I did So going back to the question. How did I start, you know We actually I hired project manager and believe it or not and I and I think this is true in every industry The project manager had 20 years experience of this and by the way, he came as a referral from the manufacturer So again the manufacturer. No, I didn't outsource. I hired him on payroll. They worked for me The manufacturer recommended me Company several companies that were already specialized in building these types of buildings And because the first project was over a million dollars. It was like it was like 1.2 million the the guy literally And and I'll tell you another backstory to one of my podcast guests has happened to her He decided that it was better for him to work for my company And then to have his own company because he was struggling trying to find jobs and trying to find projects So he said look, I will bring my whole crew to come work for you We'll do all the work and you just keep bringing in the contracts And that's what happened That's exactly what happened. And so now Let's fast forward to today, right? Let's let me let's bring it up How's that relevant until today like we're going to talk about 2020 now I talked about I'm a few weeks ago. I was saying, you know what? I want to show and prove to people that This can happen again, right? So I'm like, I mean, I'm going to challenge myself So I made a pledge is I'm going to try and go after getting a contract Working on the wall. Now, I know the wall is very controversial, right? Like, you know, the immigration policies and all that stuff, but it's it's it's not really About the wall itself. It was just putting out there like a really big bar to achieve, right? And like, how do I achieve that bar? And so I'll go back to how is that related today and how it's relevant? Well, it's funny because in the face, I mean not in my face, but in a in a in our private group, right? People said, well, Eric um You know Everyone believed in me like how are you going to do that? And it's funny. No one actually listened and paid attention to what I said, which was What's the first thing that I did? Anybody that's that's in our gulf kind of giants group you guys if you were on that call You should remember I said what I called my friend Who is an expert at metal buildings? Right. I requested his resume because he has 25 30 years of metal building experience He's built sky not sky school. He's built like indoor arenas. He's built 50 000 square foot facilities He's built indoor soccer facilities indoor college facilities He has the track record of building these buildings up. He also has because of his 30 years of experience. He has teams of people that will come work for him on the drop of the dime so I'm gonna take This guy's information Right. I'm taking his resume And I'm gonna put that in the forefront and so people go. Oh, man. That's cheating. How's it cheating? This is the same thing I did back when I started doing steel buildings back in 2010 or whatever it was Same thing same concept. Any one of you could do that Any anyone out there could do it. I was on a call an hour ago with a student of mine And he said Eric, how would I get into it? I said it people don't like to bid contracts it people don't want to do contracts it people want to do it So if you can Find a way to go out there and identify the opportunities An it guy doesn't want to talk to people. They don't want to go out and negotiate deals They just want their job like give me the it work It's like what's easy. I would do the same thing in it feel I go out and find someone Who's tired of working in corporate america tired even though they make a hundred thousand dollars a year It doesn't matter people a lot of people want a better quality life and What I found is All the small businesses that I know They're able to recruit those kind of people because they're sick of going to meetings all the time They're sick of corporate, you know, and before cobit in the corporate world. You've got Two or three meetings a day and you're fucked. You're like, look man. I want to work from home some days I want to beat my family some days and that's the flexibility that a small business can offer that the corporate world doesn't offer They want you in the office and again, you know, there's some More progressive groups out there like google and some of the new people that are doing that but At the same token, right? There's people out there that That they just want to they want to work with a small business and not be tied to 100 hour weeks and so it's not as hard to recruit them as you believe you've probably never tried And again, I'll say this again We, you know, Seneca says we suffer twice once in our imagination and once in our reality So again, a lot of this is your brain wrestling with yourself About issues that never are going to happen things that are not going to occur And so you find yourself stuck right and battling internally about what should I do or how can I do? You didn't even try it try it Try it Okay, and and so now right when I when I put that out there, right like, okay I got my guy and I he's got all this experience right and I'm going to put him in the forefront Oh, man, of course you're going to get a wall contract. Well, wait a second. You could have did the same thing This guy is sitting home On his beach side house in North Carolina. He's not even working He's not working. I called him up and I was like, hey, I said, look I said do me a favor. I said send me a resume. I was like, what for I said, uh, I'm doing a little experiment. I want to work on He's like, all right, cool. I'll send him a resume So he shot me the resume and then he called up to it. He's like, Eric, what's your experiment? He didn't I was like just send me a resume. I was like, oh, I'm just experimenting some stuff So he shot me the resume and he's like, well, Eric, by the way, what are you doing my resume? And I go, oh, I said, um I said, I'm going to try to get a contract on the border wall He was like, oh, okay. Let me know how it goes We've already discussed the fact that he's like, Eric, if you need a hundred guys 200 guys I could pick up the phone and call and get you a hundred workers 200 workers out there He doesn't want to do paperwork He wants to be in the field. He wants to manage the crews. He wants to manage the team He doesn't want the contracts in his name because he doesn't want the responsibility and the headache of collecting the money And paying the people There are people out there that really They have the opposite skill sets of you and they're looking for someone like you to come in and compliment them And I just think a lot of us we're not thinking along that manner We're we're putting our we're putting ourselves out. We are Putting ourselves down also because we are not giving ourselves enough credit for the skills that we have The abilities that we have all the intangibles that that we we don't We we see other people and we think that maybe somehow they have an advantage over us You know, it's funny because even um, I just Actually, I just downloaded it. It's not he's not called 50 cent anymore but his book is called curse Jackson's book household hard or something like that And in his book and I'm going to make a youtube video about this because I really it was like it hit home He says people are complaining about people who have privilege right and people who Um They have the privilege right and you're saying they went to better schools They may have better education. They may have better connections And he said what happens is when you have adversity in your life You have much more different ways of handling a situation and resolving issues and the people who've always had the privilege Those persons the first thing that something goes wrong. They don't know how to handle it Right and they don't know how to come from out of it So so again to me this whole thing And again, it's the same thing when when when jay-z was on the breakfast club And he's he said they asked him about what do you what do you know about like sports? He's like everything. What do you know about sports? And he was talking about the guys who were doing Representing the athletes before him right those persons They did the same playbook right they didn't do anything for the athletes They didn't do anything at all for our athletes because why was it so many athletes Got these nine hundred ninety million dollar contracts fifty million dollar contract eighty million dollar contract ended up broke They weren't teaching money management skills They weren't even holding back money to help these guys They weren't helping them with their financials all they were doing was getting contracts And then they would do the same playbook Like he said go to Nike or Reebok do an endorsement deal and they got their check and then they were out So we need to think about the fact that you know what you coming from a position of struggle hardship challenges obstacles Actually gives you strategic advantages over people who did not because they only have one way one formula one playbook, right? you have at your Inside your arsenal a whole toolbox of ways to maneuver to navigate to get through and I think that's One of the reasons why for me Like I said in the group and I'll say it again There's nobody on here that's on this chat that I can't get a contract for And for me, I don't think getting a contract is the hard part I think fulfilling the contract doing the work. That's the hard part right delivering excellence Over you know overperforming That to me is the challenge. It's not actually getting to work because the same formula holds true, right? Identify the problem Put together a team to solve the problem present your solution right at a reasonable price and Like the government's gonna They're gonna word you the opportunity like this. It's just the way it works And and again, I know like me and dana were talking yesterday. It's such a it's a it's a grind um, it is but Like what I talk about with roge or I talk about with heather I talk about with any of my podcast guests the grind is worth it Because at the end of the day, right? There's no place I I actually have a new on my book that I'm writing now. I call the government an evergreen customer So I'm putting out ig I know y'all go try to steal it But I call him an evergreen customer because just like evergreen content that you write that meant to last forever The government itself is an evergreen customer because Even hospitals close You know hospitals are closing States are running out of money The local municipalities are running out of money. They got to return to the government the government prints money They literally print money When things are bad, they spend more not less. They spend more So there's I there's no other customer that I can compare it to and by the way And speaking with roge today who created gov shop um, he said that he's literally dealing with States that have misappropriated their budgets for ppe They have given companies money. They have given contracts to new vendors to unproven vendors, right? and And so they are now battling part of the problem with why they don't have ppe's because they've already misappropriated those monies to first go Around by spending money with people who didn't deliver who gave them faulty products who took off around with the money Now when you hear that, right? I don't want y'all to go scream in and cussing and blaming trump and all this kind of stuff Think about right hey That means that these people were so crazy. They could have gave any one of us a contract You ever thought about that? Like you guys sit back and say, oh man, I don't have no experience How about the fact that they just all of these states gave all I think when when When um, nicole was on my show I think like 30 of all the vendors were unvetted. They had no past performance in the government No history to me. That should be hope for all you guys Not a sense of frustration, right? That should be a sense of hope. You'd be like, dang This guy got that instead of being mad at him or upset be like Okay, I can do the same thing You know, that's the way that You should think about this stuff, right? It's like wait a second I know because y'all sent it to me y'all be like eric. Look look at this Look at this thing trump gave somebody a contract and they were nobody this guy was just worked for trump He gave him a contract that's one contract for three million dollars The people spent Freakin look it up. Look how much money they spent on ppe They spent two billion or 40 billion whatever it was. What is three million dollar contract? That is garbage That look, you know, what's funny? I have to say this because this same thing happened When portorico they had the hurricane in portorico, right? So it's funny. I actually I was speaking at an event People came on news, right? Trump gave some electrical company a contract in portorico. Everybody was like, ah Trump gave this people contract the three-man company blah blah blah blah Meanwhile, when y'all when I'm down here in south florid, right when your life was out You didn't care who had the contract nobody was fussing when when y'all power was out and y'all wanted y'all houses cool You want your fan running and you wanted your internet? You didn't care who got the contract and where it came from But now the people in portorico y'all can sit there and judge Cool, I got them past that part But the same time that they revoked that person's contract, right for it's like 40 50 million The next day the government issued somebody else a hundred million dollar contract and it didn't even make the news It never made the news It never made the news So a lot of people out here, right to me they're doing this They're showing you this hand, right while this handle is behind it, but They like hey, let's go here with this and then you got to hand behind it back, right doing other stuff So while y'all distracted with a three-minute contract that trump gave a former advisor Somebody else just picked up a hundred million dollar contract Did you guys know that the guy that got the wall contract? He got a billion dollar contract billion one billion And y'all talking about a three million all he gave to an advisor Don't be distracted by the noise Okay, don't be distracted by What these crazy people are telling y'all on tv We have people here like lori just joined on Okay, stacey was on all right. We have people on here That look like me And look like you Right that are winning opportunities every day. Okay people in my group Right last night. They'll tell you ask them. I showed them my contract. We picked up tuesday IDIQ five years I just talked to my guy My buddy paul by the way, if you want to google him google paul maro and donald trump. You'll see him on the stage paul He just picked up a contract. He told me he just picked up a sabre contract today. He called me told me we picked it up So all of my people Right, we're we're getting contracts. We're not being distracted By all this noise. It's on on the news 24 hour news cycle. Their job is to sell you news My job is to encourage you to support you to be here to let you know This is real and it show you as a example, right someone as an example to demonstrate What's possible for everyone else that's on the other side of this coin That's that's my job. Okay. I I showed the contracts I show you the contracts. I show the emails Okay, I show you where it came from And by the way, no, you don't need a day You don't need a day. You don't need certifications Okay, we have someone that was in our group last night And this goes this is a very good point, right? Stephanie she was in a group She went to a conference. She's a veteran-owned business. She's a woman served her country. She went to a veteran-owned conference met someone at the conference Now when she met the person at the conference The person she told him she was going janitorial No past performance She made the decision After going to conferences two years in a row. She looked around the room and saw what people are doing And she said, you know, I see a lot of women don't construction. I see people like T And she said where can I fit in and she made the decision Right. She made the conscious decision to say, you know, I'm gonna do janitorial so she met a guy at the conference And and and again, I mean you could say she's blessed. She was lucky whatever the case may be I disagree. I think that like everything else I tell people, you know When you put it on paper and it's whatever you want to call your vision board your goals, whatever It's just the world conspires to help you. She went to an event Met a guy and then he said, hey, there's an opportunity coming up for some janitorial work And within I think it was three weeks or a month something like that It was in a very short window of time. He called her up with a janitorial Contract now the company was negotiating a contract with the government. So it was a sole source So she was negotiating with it. She told the guy She told the guy calling were you on last night when Stephanie talked about this? I know Daniels there Maria's She told the guy she did not have the money She didn't have the money she didn't have the staff she didn't have the money Okay, and he said that's okay don't worry about it And from the time that he talked about the contract to the time they had to start She had to or she had to organize 40 people for zero She had to hire 40 people In three days to start working on this contract And she did not have the money as a subcontractor right I just did an interview with Heather at least out of um, she's up there and Brunswick, Maine staffing company okay and Same thing She was on the 2017 Inc. 5,000 list number 28. She had 9,000 percent growth. She never worked as a prime She was a subcontractor to the large firms You do not have to be a prime a day And and all these and so like this again, but we said we talked about a day here When I do I again, I've never had a day No one's ever hired me because I had a day contract Like they didn't hire me for a day company when I did my because of my company When I did steel buildings, I worked underneath a day contractors okay But I did I wasn't the a day contractor they hired me because I did steel buildings and I was good at it And I understood the government world And that's the same reason that's the same mentality that I'm taking with this whole wall contract I'm not going to the wall contract saying give me a contract because I'm a minority What did I tell you guys I did I found one of the top guys in the country that knows how to do metal buildings So I'm leading in with an expert who's got history. We could mobilize A job Yes, thank you. LaShonda being a sub less headache You have a lot of times we don't have everything it takes to be a prime Unless it's a smaller project Many of you out here who are asking this question You're not going to be able to be a prime contractor and a lot of this stuff anyways The quickest route into this marketplace is a sub What's up that's like you can start tomorrow if you're a construction All right tomorrow Construction if you're a construction tomorrow you can reach out to any alaskan native corporation And they have worked for you All right, lori. Listen Thanks. I know you got to go. You probably still the office Thanks for joining lori. Um, but you can reach out to any so so for example The same thing with stephanie. She's janitorial. She didn't go out and get that contract Somebody else had already done the legwork the business development. They did they did the They had already made all the relationships with the government all this stuff. They already did all that So so those people had already done all of the capture management all the stuff that I teach people to do The big organization had already went and did all of that for her Now they came back with the opportunity and all she had to do was Basically attach herself to them and mobilize the people There's value in that When when the alaskan native corporation hired me My company and they they were working on a 20-minute project And they knew right even they knew I was going to be a pass through right So pass through is where they gave me the contract and I give the contract to another company Um, they knew right that I was a pass through because I didn't have the ability to do this five-minute contract They still wanted me on board because what and I said this last night. I'll say it to you guys on ig um They wanted me on board because I understood government contracting And I remember the senior project manager who's like one of the partners of the organization He said to me eric look I want you in the middle because these guys They don't know how to do government contracts and I don't have time to babysit them or teach them how to do it Just like that It's a 20 million dollar project. Do you think they want you to go out there and screw that up? So even though the people I was hiring knew how to do the physical work the actual work, right? They can get the work done. They didn't know how to manage the government contract They didn't know how to administrate a government contract. They didn't know how to do any of that kind of stuff so They needed me to help facilitate the actual contract because a lot of times with what we all a small business fail to realize Is in the government space The administrative part is where your money starts and where your money stopped It ain't the work It's the administration if you don't have your paperwork together That's probably why your friend did not get paid on time because they didn't do they paperwork They didn't turn on it. They didn't turn it in They they made a mistake, right? That's probably why when you hear a story about somebody didn't get paid on time The first thing I said is they papered probably one way. That's my go-to and response If you if somebody come tell you a story about they didn't get paid on time I want y'all to go back push back and say did you have your paperwork together? Because eric said you probably had your paperwork together That's just facts Like they won't tell you that piece and so for me the Actual for me what happened was The company were out of me being in place To make sure that all the paper was done because it would then Not just affect us from getting paid it would affect everybody from getting paid And everyone on that contract. There was like 20 sub contractors, right? All of our money was tied to making sure this guy got paid. So That was what happened. All right. It's telling me I got two minutes remaining So someone said do you get paid up front? No, you do not get paid up front in contracts There is no up front portion You have to get supplier credits Now again Last week we had someone come on they did micro purchases. So micro purchases like at like really small thresholds Yes, they were paying up front But the stuff that I you know, I don't do and I said and micro is different terms This person was doing micro at like the state and local level Contracts. So they were even like micro micro micro at the federal level I don't remember the numbers. I think it's below 20,000 or 15,000. So that's really again at a state level That's not a micro. So it's all relative to Whether you're referring to like a state micro versus a federal micro. They've got different thresholds. There's no In the same thing with small business standards, all of it's different depending on whether you're talking about state, local or federal Contracts, right? So on a like on a super micro. For example, Maria We have a contract library of congress and on the library of congress. They ordered something small like I know it's like 500 bucks or whatever. They yeah, they gave us a credit card and we shipped it but at the When you talk about 25,000, which again for us is still micro But not by definition. No, they're not going to give you a 25,000 or Check up front to deliver that item. So But but the thing is you can figure all that out. We talk about supplier credit Oh, there you go. Maria's micro with the coast guard is 6 to 1700 bucks So but yeah, we talk about all that it looks like I've got 12 seconds left. I think it's counting down on me Justin, how do I stay on this thing longer? Why does they kick me off after an hour? I got 10 seconds. Hey guys, I'm gonna I'm not signing up intentionally The looks like IG is kicking me off in five four three two one. So thanks for tuning in